xt7qjq0stw34_5322 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7qjq0stw34/data/mets.xml https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7qjq0stw34/data/1997ms474.dao.xml unknown archival material 1997ms474 English University of Kentucky The physical rights to the materials in this collection are held by the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center.  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. W. Hugh Peal manuscript collection George Vicat Cole letter to H. [Grifford?], with a clipping text 43.94 Cubic Feet 86 boxes, 4 oversize boxes, 22 items Poor-Good Peal accession no. 11453. George Vicat Cole letter to H. [Grifford?], with a clipping 2017 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7qjq0stw34/data/1997ms474/Box_61/Folder_83/Multipage28250.pdf 1856 September 9, undated 1856 1856 September 9, undated section false xt7qjq0stw34_5322 xt7qjq0stw34  

  

    
 

  

VICAT COLE, A.R.A.

Agreeablyto our custom on the
occasion of elections by the Royal
Academy, we present a portrait of
Mr. Vicat 0016, the last-elected
Assocmte of that body. The
recent election was attended with
the novel result of introducing
a landscape-painter into the
academic pale. We say “novel
result ” because it is nearly thirty
years since a landscape-painter
pm- et “Willie—Le" the late Mr.
Creswick—was deemed worthy of
the honour. The compliment is,
of course, the greater to Mr.
Cole; but we are far from admit-
ting that several other painters
have not been, during that
lengthened period, entitled to the
same distinction. It is universally
felt that English landscape-paint-
ing has excelled, despite Academic
neglect. On the Continent, where
criticism is surely as much ad.
vanced as here, our landscapeis
held in higher estimation than our
figure painting; and to this day
it best sustains comparison with
foreign work of the same kjnd,
Yet at this moment we have,
strictly speaking, only two land-
scape-painters among the sixty
Academicians and Associates—
Messrs. Lee and Cole—though
some others of the number paint.
landscape occasionally, or employ
it in combination of equal im-
portance with figures. The too
great preponderance of figure-
painters in the Academy is the
only explanation to be offered for
the sparsity of representatives of
one of the most meritorious and
delightful branches of British Art.
' Mr. Vicat Cole was born at
Portsmouth. He is the son of
Mr. George Cole, the well-known
member of the Society of British
Artists, from whom he received
his earliest instruction in Art. To
the habit of constantly painting
out-of-doors “on the spot,” must
probably be attributed his sub-
sequent artistic development, for
Mr. Cole owes little to schools,
systems, or traditions. There are,
doubtless, regulative pictorial
principles applicable to landscape
as to all other forms of Art; but
constant reference to Nature her-
self, as the highest authority,
is the paramount duty of
the landsca e-painter. Mr. Cole
exhibited t at the British
Institution, in 1852; the subject
of his picture being a view of
Leith-hill from Ranmoor-com-
mon. In 1858 he was elected a
member of the Society of British
Artists, and during several suc-
ceeding years he was a regular
exhibitor in Suffolk-street. One
of his contributions to those rooms,
a picture of a corn-field, was re-
exhibited in the ’62 International
Gallery, and gained the medal of
the Society for the Encourage-
ment of the Fine Arts.
In 1864, following the example
of Stanfield, Roberts, Creswick,
and others who had been members
and exhibitors at Suifolk-street,
Mr. Cole retired from that society
to become a candidate for exhi-
bition and honours at the Royal
Academy. The most important
works which he has exhibited at
the Academy are “ The De-
cline of Day” (1860—11. large
picture with effect of even-
tide; “ Spring-time ” (1865),
the subject being suggested by
one of the songs in “Love’s
Labour Lost; ” “Evening- Rest,"
and “ Summer's Golden Crown ”
(1866)—the latter appeared at the
Paris Exhibition of 1867, and
attracted much notice there; a
large stormy seapiece and “St.
Bride’s Bay” (1867); “Sunlight
Lingering on the Autumn Woods ’ ’
(1869); “A Pause in the Storm,
at Sunset,” “Summer Showers,”
and “ Floating Downto Camelot’ ’
(1869). Mr. Cole’s favourite field
of study and the source of most of
his subjects is Surrey, with its pic-
turesque hills and dales, moors, and
woodland com-field and pasturage.
The artist may be classed as an
imitative realistic painter, relying
on the character and sentiment of
the scene he represents; and if
his work receives no very decided
modification from passing through
a mental or imaginative medium,
it is always healthy and cheerful
in feeling, and it owes much to
the technical charms of an elegant,
graceful execution, and an effec-
tive scheme and playful inter-
change of colouring.
The portrait is from a photo-
graph by Mr. John Watkins.